REVIEW: For the Night is Dark

The great strength of this anthology is the way the stories have a
strong sense of place and convincing, realistic characters. Across all
of the stories it begins to feel like the bogey monster of this day and
age is the chav (or whatever your regional term for youths from the
ghetto is), or the under-privileged world they are forced to grow up in
and the destructive role of abusive parenting. Of particular note: 21
Brooklands by Carole Johnstone which will probably stick in my mind for
some time. This Darkness by John Claude Smith is also notable, it feels
somewhat like a parable about the redemption that can only be found by
hitting bottom.

There were some stories with notably original
elements. God May Pity All Weak Hearts by Daniel I. Russel retells the
Dr. Crippen murder. On a Midnight Black Chessie by Kevin Lucia finds
horror in a very unlikely place. And How the Dark Bleeds by Jasper Bark
seems to effortlessly create a whole mythology around the layered story
of the protagonist within just a few short pages.

If there is any
criticism I would make it is that many of the stories don't quite close
conclusively and give a feeling of resolution. Exceptions being the
under-stated pathos in the conclusion of the zombie story Darker with
the Day by Scott Nicholson and the tightly plotted A Snitch in Time by
Robert W Walker.

Overall this collection represents what a good
horror anthology should be. A somewhat uneven groups of stories but
none that are without merit, misogynist or mindlessly gratuitous--traits
that hobble many other publishers in this genre. At the center of
almost all of these stories there is a fate that is genuinely horrific
if contemplated, and that resonates with the horrors that do or could
exist in the real world.

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